Lack of third-party support hampers some interesting multitasking ideas.

Smartphones and tablets with touchscreens have succeeded in no small part because of their simplicity. Things like memory management and multiple layered windows were removed from the equation and replaced with fullscreen applications that allowed for only minimal background activity. To varying degrees, multitasking via applications running in the background has come to iOS and Android, but even Windows is moving away from windowed programs toward a brave new fullscreen future.

At least, to a point. Windows 8 will retain its traditional desktop to enable more versatile computing when desired, and we hope to see more versatile multitasking to come to other tablets as well. Samsung's new Galaxy Note 10.1 wants to be one of those tablets, trying a couple of different multitasking methods that actually work quite well—or they would, if they could support any applications that weren't built in to the device.

The hardware: High-end inside, cheap and plasticky outside

Enlarge/ Across the top of the Note 10.1: the headphone jack, IR blaster, SD card slot, volume rocker, and power button.

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ On the bottom of the tablet, you'll see its proprietary power and data connector. On the right side, you can also see the compartment where the pen is stored.

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ The Note 10.1's speakers don't get very loud and don't have much bass, but they are mounted on the front of the device, which makes them more difficult to block by accident while watching videos.

Andrew Cunningham

Let's start with the good: the Note 10.1, which measures 7.1" x 1.3" x 10.3" and weighs 1.3 pounds, is powered by a 1.4GHz quad-core Samsung Exynos 4412 CPU and an ARM Mali-400 MP4 GPU. As our benchmarks will show, this is a fast combination that compares favorably to other Android tablets and to Apple's iPad. 16GB and 32GB capacities are available now, with a 64GB version planned for release at an unspecified future date—for now, up to 32GB of additional storage can be added via the MicroSD card slot. A 5.0 megapixel rear camera with flash and a 1.9 megapixel front camera are also included; the latter is suitable for video chatting and not much else, and the former takes passable-but-noisy photos with muted colors.

Enlarge/ A picture of some of the junk on my desk taken with the iPhone 4S.

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ The same desk junk, taken with the Note 10.1's camera. Note in particular the extra noise and more muted reds.

Andrew Cunningham

Rounding out the hardware is dual-band WiFi (a 3G version is forthcoming) and Bluetooth 4.0; HDMI output and USB On-The-Go support are both possible if you purchase the required dongles. One odd but interesting inclusion is the presence of an IR blaster, which can be used to control your television and other boxes in your home entertainment center via the included Peel Smart Remote app—this feature has also been available in some past Galaxy Tab hardware. An equally interesting omission is its lack of an NFC chip, meaning that you won't be able to beam information easily between the Note 10.1 and your Galaxy S III or Galaxy Nexus.

Now that we've got the good stuff out of the way, let's talk about the physical construction of the tablet.

The body of the Note 10.1 is made entirely of plastic, so it weighs less than both the latest iPad and older tablets like the Motorola Xoom, making it a bit more pleasant to use in portrait mode. However, the plastic has a lot of flex to it, especially on the back, and it contributes to a cheap feeling that belies the Note 10.1's premium pricing. There are ways to do plastic well—I'd hold up the Nexus 7 and Nokia Lumia 900 as good examples—but the Note 10.1 doesn't stand up to either of those two. The Galaxy Note smartphone is similarly light and all-plastic, but its more rigid, texturized plastic back and lack of chintzy silver trim (which the Note 10.1 has) make it look and feel better in the hand.

Enlarge/ The back of the Note 10.1 is a flexible feeling plastic that makes it feel cheap. The tablet also comes in black.

Andrew Cunningham

The screen is also a disappointment—it's bright and has good color and viewing angles, but a 1280x800 screen in a $500 tablet is a definite strike when other tablets in the same price range are offering 1920x1200 (in the case of ASUS' Transformer Pad Infinity) or 2048x1536 (Apple's newest iPad). It's a perfectly serviceable screen, but that's the nicest adjective it elicits.

Benchmarks and battery life

The extra CPU cores in the Nexus 7 and Note 10.1 give them better Geekbench scores than the iOS devices, though as the Sunspider scores show, additional processing power doesn't always translate directly into increased performance. In this case, the Note 10.1 is still faster than the Nexus 7 and both iPads.

In our GPU tests, our first with the recently released GLBenchmark 2.5, the Note 10.1 edges out the old iPad 2, but falls far short of the Retina iPad—Apple's tablets have always placed a heavy emphasis on GPU performance, so this should come as no surprise.

The Exynos 4 is manufactured on a 32nm process, so this power doesn't come at the cost of battery life. In our usage, which combined Netflix streaming, Web browsing, note-taking with the S Pen, and light gaming—all with WiFi enabled and the screen at 50 percent brightness—the 7,000mAh battery lasted for about eight-and-a-half hours, comparable to other tablets of this size. Your mileage will obviously vary depending on the specific tasks you're performing.

The pen

The thing that Samsung hopes will differentiate the Note 10.1 from other Android tablets is the S Pen, a small, light stylus that slides into the tablet's case while not in use. As we discussed in our original hands-on, the stylus interacts with an additional layer underneath the LCD—it won't work with any old tablet, but the additional hardware makes it a bit more accurate than plain capacitive styli (it also allows the tablet to detect the tip of the pen even if it isn't touching the screen). The tablet's Wacom digitizer is pressure-sensitive, though Samsung's advertised 1,000 sensitivity levels seems a bit optimistic based on our usage.

Using S Note's handwriting recognition features made this happen a lot.

Andrew Cunningham

The Note 10.1 features a few apps designed to use the S Pen—the most prominent is Samsung's own S Note, which allows for both the scrawling of notes and the drawing of pictures. Its many buttons and settings are a bit oblique at first, but a set of instructions and some poking around will soon familiarize you with its features. S Note also includes handwriting recognition for text and equations, which works fairly well, but I was able to get the application to crash pretty consistently if I threw too much at it too quickly—the worse the handwriting, the quicker the app was to crash.

The other apps designed to showcase the S Pen include Adobe Photoshop Touch, which is made much more accurate by the tablet's ability to detect the tip of the pen from a couple of inches away; Crayon Physics Deluxe, a fun if nearly four-year-old game; and Kno.com, an e-textbook app that lets you highlight passages of books and write notes in the margins. Other apps designed with the S Pen in mind are available in Samsung's app store, though the majority of applications from the Google Play store are going to be designed with fingers in mind.

It's neat they're trying something new but classes of products like these need support. And there is no reason to believe, unless it's an overwhelming success (not going to happen), that Samsung will properly support this. Even if I tried it and loved it that would make me really reluctant to purchase it.

I realize you guys just got sued into oblivion, but Apple is making a killing with a nice device, why has no one figured out a way to make a device not a piece of shit?

I'm sure they don't have a patent on devices that are well made.

Because making good tablets is actually hard work?

Is that why this review talks about shitty, crashing apps (even the built in one, classy), a shitty stylus, a shitty screen and a shitty tablet while the iPad reviews talk about how wonderful they are?

One look at this device and it's obvious why they continue to get rolled by superior products.

@fsck: Not even remotely. Samsung went with a shotgun approach in their design -- the inclusion of a stylus is proof of this. They don't really know who uses their devices, or for what, and are hoping to appeal to the widest possible demographic as a substitute for doing their market research. The lack of polish also speaks to this -- they spread themselves too thin on the spec sheet, and left themselves no time for getting the user experience right.

Apple devices employ a totally different methodology -- they know exactly who their market is, and will cut and cut and cut until they've got something tailored precisely to that demographic. Then they polish it obsessively.

In a sense, the use of the Jesus fresco "reinterpretation" is a really good metaphor for this device: As a work of art on it's own, it's a very courageous take on a cultural artifact, that could definitely be interpreted to underscore the hypocrisy and contradictions inherent in the institution that created the artifact in the first place, but as a copy of the artifact itself, it's about as close to Caucasian Jesus as an Inuit woman with a face transplant.

That's Samsung right now though. What I'd really like is someone to make an Android with an experience as good as the iPad. I don't think the OS is the weak link anymore. JB has made it about 95% of the way there. The rest to get some hardware that isn't worthless, and to keep the manufacturers from fucking up the experience. Probably won't happen though.

Nexus 7 is an excellent effort. Too bad we have to wait for Google spearhead something that isn't trash. These OEMs should see such a massive opportunity. I like how all of them probably sit around, scratching their heads as they try to solve the mystery of why their products sucks. Just fucking use them guys, it's really obvious.

Hmmm. I might be missing something obvious, but the second photo, while having much more muted colors, seems significantly sharper (look at the text on the Sharpie marker). Noise levels seem about the same to me - if anything, less on the second.

Enough with the stupid Apple posts. If you cannot be bothered to make a comparison to Apple at least vaguely on topic then just leave them out of it. It's fair to compare this to the iPad, but posts like "Apple told me it was just like the iPad" are useless noise that serve to do nothing but drag the conversation into the gutter.

Like most reviews of the SGN10.1, this one completely misses the point.

To begin with the premise of your comparison is wrong. You are comparing the SGN10.1 with other tablets at this price point which don't offer half the functionality. You make light of the s-pen and yet the s-pen is the whole point.

You are comparing a utility device with consumption devices. If you know anything about HD screens you would know that it would be impossible to marry a Wacom digitizer pen with an HD screen with this processor and expect anywhere near acceptable performance. Even the upcoming surface tablet requires an Intel chipset at twice the price to drive an HD screen with quality pen input.

I agree to a point. If you want a toy that is long on pretty and short on functionality get the iPad or Infinity. However, if you want a tablet that is actually a tool you can use everyday in business or school, get the SGN10.1.

Go over to xda sometime where the real users of the SGN10.1 hang out. They are raving about this device. Go time Bestbuy's website where the SGN10.1 is getting 4.5+ stars from real owners.

Like most reviews of the SGN10.1, this one completely misses the point.

To begin with the premise of your comparison is wrong. You are comparing the SGN10.1 with other tablets at this price point which don't offer half the functionality. You make light of the s-pen and yet the s-pen is the whole point.

You are comparing a utility device with consumption devices. If you know anything about HD screens you would know that it would be impossible to marry a Wacom digitizer pen with an HD screen with this processor and expect anywhere near acceptable performance. Even the upcoming surface tablet requires an Intel chipset at twice the price to drive an HD screen with quality pen input.

I agree to a point. If you want a toy that is long on pretty and short on functionality get the iPad or Infinity. However, if you want a tablet that is actually a tool you can use everyday in business or school, get the SGN10.1.

Go over to xda sometime where the real users of the SGN10.1 hang out. They are raving about this device. Go time Bestbuy's website where the SGN10.1 is getting 4.5+ stars from real owners.

Why can't I use my toy for everyday business or school? I don't get it.

Also, I think we should just go by Best Buy's review scores going forward.

The fact that the Android fans get all irritated at the mention of the iPad, while the iPad users are happy and ignore the Android stuff should tell you something.

Stylus is a stupid concept for a general-use tablet. It has a niche in graphics design, I get that, but everywhere else it just gets in the way of the user experience. It's also that thing you are most likely to misplace. What are they taking us back to ~2004?

One would be crazy to spend $500 on this. Who is the audience for this? If you locked the Samsung execs in different rooms and asked them that question, you wouldn't get two similar responses. Even if I had no investment in the Apple ecosystem, this tablet would be entirely unappealing.

Stylus is a stupid concept for a general-use tablet. It has a niche in graphics design, I get that, but everywhere else it just gets in the way of the user experience. It's also that thing you are most likely to misplace. What are they taking us back to ~2004?

No, a UI which requires a stylus is what gets in the way. I know someone said "if you see a stylus, they blew it," but that doesn't make it the absolute truth. There are applications which work better with a stylus and the option to have one available is a nicety.

The article was well written, but I have to admit I immediately googled for the "a Fresco in Span Is Ruined" article because of the amusing image of a monkey wearing a rotten pumpkin rendition of Jesus.

The stylus is their way of trying to differentiate themselves from Apple and provide something better. Unfortunately, a stylus isn't what people want on a tablet.

One of the problems is that not only is Apple pretty good and bringing out new or emerging technologies quickly, but they bring up the support for it too. I don't know if you can do that when your device is one of hundreds on the the market and your only real control are the variances in hardware. No one's going to roll out anything to support feature X on a single new tablet in a space of many.

This all brings me back to the assumption that Samsung is content where they are. They have the resources to build excellent hardware. Start with something that feels like a million bucks and people will notice.

They keep pushing out this warmed over crap. They don't care it's buggy or an awful product, they'll just release a new one next month.

Impressive benchmarks, ugly machine. Don't need to touch it to tell the plastic is cheap. I'd expect it to be about the price of my nexus 7. They want $500? Did Samsung do any consumer reaction tests before they put this thing to market?

I've had plenty of times when I wanted a stylus with my smartphone, for things like taking notes and drawing diagrams, if the original galaxy note were a bit smaller I would probably bought it instead of a galaxy s2.But this device doesn't seem very good compared with other android tablets and the iPad.

One would be crazy to spend $500 on this. Who is the audience for this? If you locked the Samsung execs in different rooms and asked them that question, you wouldn't get two similar responses. Even if I had no investment in the Apple ecosystem, this tablet would be entirely unappealing.

Samsung has sold ten million Note devices. It's obvious they're trying to broaden that market segment out to a bigger screen.

This is not really designed to be an iPad equivalent, which is why all of these tech reviews are pretty awful.

@fsck: Not even remotely. Samsung went with a shotgun approach in their design -- the inclusion of a stylus is proof of this. They don't really know who uses their devices, or for what, and are hoping to appeal to the widest possible demographic as a substitute for doing their market research. The lack of polish also speaks to this -- they spread themselves too thin on the spec sheet, and left themselves no time for getting the user experience right.

Apple devices employ a totally different methodology -- they know exactly who their market is, and will cut and cut and cut until they've got something tailored precisely to that demographic. Then they polish it obsessively.

In a sense, the use of the Jesus fresco "reinterpretation" is a really good metaphor for this device: As a work of art on it's own, it's a very courageous take on a cultural artifact, that could definitely be interpreted to underscore the hypocrisy and contradictions inherent in the institution that created the artifact in the first place, but as a copy of the artifact itself, it's about as close to Caucasian Jesus as an Inuit woman with a face transplant.

edited: minor tweaks to wording.

Needless to say, I was being facetious. This is the classic approach taken by most tablet manufacturers out there. A tablet designed and built around all of the bells and whistles people think they want or need instead of around a well rounded user experience. I am afraid this is why Apple remains triumphant. The iPad design puts so much emphasis on user experience that the device simply disappears. Like others have said, you'd be crazy to shell out $500 for this. The bar has been set pretty high and I have yet to see a solid contender in this market. Some come close, but not quite...

I'm getting pissed at always reading bad reviews about plastic stuff:- quality is perceived, actually it's a preconception unless you can backup your negative opinion about it with facts.- the alternatives are glass (heavy, vulnerable to shocks and pressure) and metal (heavy, frequent issues with scratching or flaking).

I'd rather have a plasticy phone/tablet that can withstand a fall, the a glass one that can't. And a died-indepth plastic that won't show scratches too much, instead of cute metal that'll look like a silver/black zebra after a few months in my pocket.

So, unless you know something I don't (and I'm curious), I think the 'cheap plastic" motto has got to stop. It's probably not only wrong, but exactly the contrary.

I don't understand all the "Unfortunately, a stylus isn't what people want on a tablet". The problem is just that the underlying hardware isn't fast enough and the handwriting recognition isn't good enough. These problems will be solved with time (perhaps after ARM goes away). The 'user experience' is not the problem (so long as you don't make a crappy UI, which seems unlikely now that iOS and android exist).

Someday the technology will exist to do this correctly and some form-over-function company will come along and introduce a tablet that people can actually use as a replacement for pen-and-paper. Of course, that company will be labeled as 'innovative' and 'ground-breaking' with a totally non-obvious user interface, and people will conveniently forget that this Samsung tablet ever existed...

This 9" slate packs a 1.2GHz Tegra 3 processor, a 1280x800 display, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. At $300, this tablet is just barely more expensive than the comparable 16GB Nexus 7. For your extra $50 you not only get a bigger screen, but a rear facing camera and HDMI output.

No one wants a tablet with a stylus? *I* do, so I can take notes and make sketches. If I absolutely had to use a stylus to do stuff, that would be bad, but having the right tool for the right job is GOOD.

I don't find the lack of NFC a con. It's a 10" tablet -- I'm not going to wave it at a payment device, and I'm not sure I want NFC anyway. Nor would I plan to take pictures with it -- holding up a device this size to take a photo would be an exercise in frustration.

Like most reviews of the SGN10.1, this one completely misses the point.

To begin with the premise of your comparison is wrong. You are comparing the SGN10.1 with other tablets at this price point which don't offer half the functionality. You make light of the s-pen and yet the s-pen is the whole point.

You are comparing a utility device with consumption devices. If you know anything about HD screens you would know that it would be impossible to marry a Wacom digitizer pen with an HD screen with this processor and expect anywhere near acceptable performance. Even the upcoming surface tablet requires an Intel chipset at twice the price to drive an HD screen with quality pen input.

I agree to a point. If you want a toy that is long on pretty and short on functionality get the iPad or Infinity. However, if you want a tablet that is actually a tool you can use everyday in business or school, get the SGN10.1.

Go over to xda sometime where the real users of the SGN10.1 hang out. They are raving about this device. Go time Bestbuy's website where the SGN10.1 is getting 4.5+ stars from real owners.

This is the same issue I have many of the reviews for it. If the Note 10.1 is going to be marked down for being not the best build quality and having some lag; then other tablets should be marked down for not even having a stylus and the ability to have two apps on the screen at a time (even if the Note's representation of these is not the best (the stylus' pressure levels are more than even those in TabletPCs).

On a different note; I've noticed in the comments here a lot of people are going "but people don't want that", etc. How do you know that? You certainly don't speak for me and it's almost impossible that you speak for everyone else. It also grates me that people seem to think they know all about product design, manufacture and use (the latter is even worse when they haven't actually used said product). Please stop it. You're ruining the comments.

Andrew Cunningham / Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue.